Earlier this year, Milan and Ivana had an idea...
Today we’re excited to launch a great campaign as part of TEDxAmsterdam – the TEDxAmsterdam Challenges. As you may be aware, last year we received over 4,500 requests to attend our event. This year (if our inbox is anything to go by so far) it looks like we’ll easily eclipse that number.
So we had to think fast. The situation presents a challenge – on one hand, we want to connect innovators and industry leaders together to help make the ideas presented at TEDxAmsterdam a reality. On the other, we want to share that experience with as many people as possible. Put that together at a venue with only a limited number of seats and you have a problem…or a challenge, depending on whether you’re glass half empty or full kind of person.
Thankfully the creative team at Lev Kaupas, Ivana Kowsoleea and Milan van den Bovenkamp, who also happen to be on our Experience Team, put their heads together to brainstorm a solution. After a creative pitch to the rest of us and some even more creative begging to Freek Bodemeijer (whom we affectionately refer to as the ‘ticket-keeper’), Ivana and Milan managed to score 100 tickets to give away.
But it wasn’t a matter of throwing them away like confetti. Like the famous movie Charlie and the Cholocate Factory – we prefer the original, not the Johnny Depp remake 
– tickets to TEDxAmsterdam are highly sought-after. We decided to make people work for it – but in the nicest and most ‘TEDx’ way possible: by using brainpower, and a bit of brawn.
So the idea is this: let us know your good ideas. We’re calling them ‘ideas worth doing,’ (as opposed to ‘ideas worth spreading’), and it’s about positive actions that have had an impact on your neighbourhood, community, city, country – even the planet. Share them with us via the website, and then we’ll throw open the gates for people around the world the vote. The best 100 ideas worth doing win. It can’t be simpler than that. Except now that you have to think of something really cool to stand out from the crowd.
You can find more information here on our website, including a registration form. You can collaborate with friends, nominate others or simply enter yourself. As the campaign unfolds over the next 5 months, we’ll be producing a series of videos to guide you through the competition process. Stay tuned for updates each month.
Entries close on the 19 October.
Voting takes place from 19 October
Winners will be announced on the 9 November.
The first video was produced by a small team of creatives based here in Amsterdam, and you can watch it here:
TEDxAmsterdam Challenge ‘Ideas Worth Doing’ episode 1.
Good luck. We look forward to hearing what you think, and learning how you think about the world you live in through the ideas you generate.
Video credits:
Made by Bonafide Binky
Aad Duineveld (illustrations)
Arriën Molema (music),
Ivana Kowsoleea (direction, concept, production),
Laurens Hebly (Voice-over),
Milan van den Bovenkamp (direction, concept, production),
Sasha Naod (copy)
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